


A New Start

by DevBasaa



Series: Moments In and Out of Time [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-CAWS, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2073849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevBasaa/pseuds/DevBasaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slowly, and in steps, The Asset wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Start

The men in the vault scurried like roaches after a light switch had been thrown. They gathered data; they shoved files in boxes. Men were lifting crates and others were taking down the machine they’d used to damage his mind.

It took them a minute to even notice The Asset stood, looming near.

“What did you do?” he said aloud, to no one in-particular; to all of them.

One man stopped and looked at him, wide-eyed. The soldiers with the guns weren’t present. They might be on the same ships that The Asset had been on, falling to their deaths, burning alive.

The man who stopped shook, quivering like paper in a strong wind. He swallowed hard and then flinched as The Asset yelled: “What did you do to me!?”

The other men jumped, cursed; they dropped the boxes they were carrying and scattered, running.

The Asset reached out and grabbed one by the neck, then another, and threw them. His rage came over him faster than he even expected. He’d thought to demand answers, but that plan disappeared in a blur of hate, fear, confusion and horror.

When the men had all raced away from him, he turned to the metal bars he’d been kept behind. He gave a wordless cry as he grabbed a bar from the cage door. The metal creaked and groaned, resisting, but the Asset’s metal arm had power beyond iron. With a noise that rent the air and a motion that threw sparks, the Asset stepped away with his latest weapon. He then turned to the chair he so often sat in, the chair they’d strapped him to. He raised the bar high and then brought it down like a sledgehammer, striking the chair with all the pain and power and terror it held over him. Again and again he beat the machinery, pieces flying, striking him in the face, cutting him. He yelled wordlessly the harder he hit.

When the last of his energy sent him stumbling forward with a final strike to the broken chair, he fell to his knees beside it, his chest heaving.

He knew he had blood on his face; he felt it, wet and warm, covering his cheeks. He touched his face with both hands and drew them back to look at the evidence.

He expected blood. He realized what he felt were tears.

Crying? When had he ever cried?

~*~

“Hey, buddy, you OK?”

He sat up, shivering, shaking, wet with sweat. Had he been screaming again? Last night’s shelter had made him leave after two fitful episodes of moaning and screaming. They weren’t unkind about it, but they still made him go. He didn’t sleep the rest of that night or the next. Finding another shelter with room had been a blessing; he didn’t want to be thrown out of this one. How many more places did he have left to go?

He pulled the thin blanket up to his face and rubbed; he tried to calm his breathing. Why did he tremble like this? He never had before—that he knew of. He hated the way he shook over dreams he couldn’t even remember when he woke. One week and he’d lost all control. The leader would have struck him for this.

But, of course, there was no leader. Not anymore. There were no mission directives; the organization was in shambles. His targets had lived and the massive weapons Hydra had created were now molten piles of slag, polluting the Potomac.

He couldn’t begin to know what his next step should be.

“Buddy? Don’t, like, freak out or anything, OK? They call the cops when you do.”

He caught his breath and turned to the man speaking to him. He was a disused looking thing, scruffy, broken. He imagined he looked much the same way. The man had a scraggly beard covering a round face and long hair, mostly hidden by a dingy baseball cap. He’d rolled onto his side towards him, which made him nearly as close as a bed partner, the cots lined one after another with barely a leg’s width between them. The man watched him with a cautious eye, as if he could discern some detail of character by tilting his head just so. 

“I’m OK.” His voice cracked; he hadn’t spoken much. He rarely needed to before and had less use for it now. No one had told him if he yelled out words in his sleep. Perhaps he should ask. They might be clues.

The man shifted his weight to his elbow and held out his hand.

“I’m Jerry.”

He starred at the man’s hand. He didn’t want to touch him. He didn’t want to touch anyone, really. Like a reflex, he pushed his left arm deeper under the blanket. The man couldn’t have seen it, he kept the metal well covered with a long-sleeve shirt and a glove, but he hid it further anyway.

The man—Jerry—nodded once and pulled his hand back. “That’s fine,” he said. “Been there, too. You got a name, though?”

He thought about that. He knew the name listed in the file he’d taken from the vault. It matched the name his mission—The Captain—had told him. A name that meant something.

But it wasn’t his only name. Two of them felt cold and filled with anger when he thought of it: The Asset. The Winter Soldier. Another felt too personal and intimate to claim, so he wouldn’t. Not yet.

But he accepted that he did have a name.

“James,” he said, finally. “My name is James.”

He supposed, it was a start.

 

END


End file.
